In writing this, I drew heavily from a book: Prison Break: Why Conservatives Turned Against Mass Incarceration, by David Dagan and Steven M. Teles

You may find this helpful as a primer on how reform actually gets passed and implemented, in addition to Mark Kleiman's work about what should be done.

I think that sometimes when someone has a good experience with a mediator they doubt that it's possible for other people to have bad experiences. Also Aurora is actually on this forum and messaged me to ask if I wanted to do a session so she can listen to the impact she's had on me and I absolutely do not. If you mention that you had a negative experience with her, she might message you too, so watch out.

Yup, and specifically in Aurora's case, low ability to empathize with others who aren't her friends, and low ability to recognize that she should not be mediating a situation where she's friends or dating one of the parties and not close with the other.

I have had a terrible mediation experience with her where she was friends with the other party and not friends with me. This tracks with the Time Mag reporting where she did a mediation while dating one of the parties. Do not let her mediate anything. I saw once that she specializes in or was looking to help survivors of sexual assault. Stay away from this person.

Yes, I do think that most parents in the bay area are too nervous about taking care of other people's kids (maybe it gets better when the kids are 6+ years old and people are more willing to e.g. drop them off at birthday parties where the parents leave). It also requires a certain type of personality to be okay with whatever parenting style your friends or loved ones have when they are taking care of your kids for free, and be OK with their diet, nap schedule, etc slipping while you're gone.

That's incredible!! New hero. Thank you!!

basically nobody besides grandparents or people you pay seems to be interested in helping take care of children in modern Western society.

I feel like this is more true in the Bay area than in other places. Not sure why. Anyways, if you are in San Francisco and looking to make parent friends where you can have play dates at each other's houses and potentially drop off your kids at each other's houses if there's some kind of child care gap, we should be friends. I live in the Mission district and have a 3.5 and 1.5-year-old and want to build this kind of friend/support network locally.

Thanks so much for your reply! Yes, grandparent help can make this whole project so much more manageable. We don't have grandparents nearby but our nanny is able to take care of both kids if the preschool closes or the kids aren't feeling well, and it's a godsend.

That's very inspiring that Hilary Greaves has kids! Do you know how many?

I wonder if that's just the nature of earning-to-give careers? That if you do the same thing for a while just to make money that you will eventually get bored and not want to work that hard at it? Versus direct work which seems to me to be easier to feel personal fulfillment around.

I'm ecstatic that AMF was able to arrange for you to work part time!! I've also been surprised by what good luck I've had with being able to get very flexible part time internships during my maternity leave and being able to go part time until my baby turned one at my day job. My advice for others on this is that if you've already cultivated a previous relationship with the people you work for or want to work for, it doesn't hurt to ask for a non traditional work arrangement. And then more generally, I think that people who want to have impact and also want to have kids can sometimes find creative solutions to have both.